Dr Maria...

I was born in Grzegorzewo, which was at the time a small village in the Polish countryside, at the end of 1935.

I had a peaceful childhood until the age of eight. But, from April to September 1943, the battle front crossed our region and included our village. We had to leave our home, bury our goods and run away, the fighting being just a few miles from us. As we didn’t find a safe place immediately; we hid in the forest an entire day. Those hours were the longest of my life. I remember being petrified with fear, the deafening sounds of shells echoing through my head and lost bullets whistling past above me.

We lived this way for six months, sleeping in stables, helping my mother with the injured soldiers who were begging for help, playing with dead corpses washed up on the river bank…

But the worst was yet to come. In December 1943, the Soviet police arrested my father and deported him to the Gulag somewhere in Siberia, leaving us behind. To survive, my mother and I went door to door, selling oil we had previously bought in town. As soon as we had saved a little, we would send a package to my father with some food so that he didn’t starve to death.

The years passed by. In 1946, I learned that I had a diseased hip. After a few months, I couldn’t move around anymore. I spend two years in Vilnius hospital. Finally, my leg healed, but it hadn’t grown during the illness, so it was shorter than the other. To avoid limping, I put a piece of wood in my shoe. The pain never really left…

After three years, three months and eight days, I could finally hold my father in my arms again. He had survived.

We lived the following years in misery, but we were grateful: war was over, my father had come back, and we had all survived. Communism was running the country. Our region became Lithuanian. I had to learn Russian to go to school. I remember it was not easy because I had always studied at home: school and teachers were something new but I tried to do my best and finally graduated.

In 1956, as the border between Poland and Lithuania reopened, I decided to leave the country which no longer felt my own. I managed to get a scholarship to study in Warsaw. When I had come out of the hospital a decade earlier, I said to the nurses I wanted to be a hero, just like them. Therefore, I entered the Medical University of Warsaw. I was starting a new life.

The rest of my existence was much like many other people’s. I got my diploma and worked as a pneumologist in hospitals. I met a lovely man at a dance who became my husband. We had two adorable children, Ania and Piotrek. I remember when we spent holidays camping in the North, in the forests, near lakes; those were good times. I guess we were just a happy family.

The years passed by. My children grew up. One left for France, the other comes and visits once or twice a week. We built a vacation house for our grandchildren, who used to spend the whole of summer with us.

I’ve never stopped working; even today I practice three times a week in my medical office.

I’m 80 years old now. I am happy with the life I had, even if there were hard times. I’ve learned that my own happiness rests on others, that is why I’ve done my best to help every person I meet. If I had a piece of advice to give it would be to remember to enjoy every moment, because life flies by so fast!

Article by Alexandra CROIZET